


Cages and Broken Hearts

by Middle_Earth_Mama



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold in the Dark Castle, Dark One Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Don't Examine This Too Closely, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, My First Once Upon A Time Fic, Post-Episode: s01e12 Skin Deep, Protective Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26402071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Middle_Earth_Mama/pseuds/Middle_Earth_Mama
Summary: After Belle is cast out of the Dark Castle, she hurries home to her loving father. Of course, she couldn't know her welcome would be... less than welcoming. He demands she be cleansed, with Gaston in charge of her care.This one is dark, but not necessarily very graphic. If you don't like the tags, please don't read.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 23
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one shot I wrote several years ago after watching Once for the first time. I was too afraid to post it then, but finally decided why not? Somebody will surely like it, right? 
> 
> My first Once Upon a Time fic, I have several more started, but this one has been sitting on my desktop forever!

Her prison was cold and damp. The musty smell initially overwhelmed Belle's nose, but now she had no grasp of any of her senses at all. Everything was pain. She dare not move, lest she disturb the fresh lashings on her back and the bruises covering her once porcelain skin. She lay on the stone floor, paying no mind to the sheen of sour water that filled its cracks, her eyes filled with the light of the sky through the barred window in the ceiling above her.

Five days. It had only been five days since she had returned home from The Dark One's castle. Belle had been so sure of herself when she had approached him that fateful day, bent on breaking his curse and living happily ever after. She was still confident in her assumptions when she stood in his face and scolded him on her way out.

Now, she wasn't so sure.

Did he ever really love her? Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe it had all been in her head.

By now, five days had felt like a lifetime. Maybe none of it was ever real. Was she real?

She thought of the last few days and how she ended up here. Belle had been so sure her father would be relieved to see her return, alive and as well as she could be, while perhaps nursing a broken heart.

How wrong she had been.

She had been accused of all the worst things. They called her a whore, said she was possessed by evil.

Her father had ordered that she be cleansed. She didn't feel any cleaner. She was filthy. Filthy from the grime on the floor. Filthy from the hands that had grabbed at her skin. Filthy from the festering wounds from the lashings.

Maybe she was dead.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of the bars creaking open. She cringed as large cold hands grabbed her wrists and yanked her up, throwing her hard onto the table. Her hips slammed into the unforgiving stone.

No, no, it was him.  
Gaston.  
He had told her this would happen. His breath had been acid in her nose as he whispered to her days ago about what he would do to her.  
He just had to break her first.  
She was broken alright. And he knew it. He pushed her onto her stomach, flattening her into the cold stone table.

No. No no no no this could not be happening. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find her voice as he pulled at the hem of her scrap of a dress.  
Her voice started out as a whisper.  
His name the first thing that came to her mind.

“R-r-r--...” she fought to make her strained vocal chords to work again.  
She had screamed them raw days ago. 

“Rumplestiltskin,” she exhaled softly.  
“Rumplestiltskin,” her voice was regaining its clarity as she became more sure of her resolve. She swallowed dryly and forced his name once more from her lips.  
“Rumplestiltskin.”

A loud bang resounded throughout the dungeon and purple smoke drifted through the stale air, and there he was. His face was carefully masked into a look of indifference, until he took in the sight before him.

Gaston was frozen in the act of trying to free himself from his pants, now he had turned horribly pale with a look of utter terror on his face.

Belle could only lift her heavy eyelids to glance up at the sorcerer as his face twisted into one of horror, and then sheer fury, before her eyes drifted closed and she collapsed against the stone table in a heap, darkness finally overcoming her.

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes shot to Gaston, who was already trying to back slowly to the door. Perhaps he had hoped Rumplestiltskin would be distracted by Belle long enough that he could escape.  
However, he was quite mistaken.

The sorcerer stalked towards Gaston, the air around him crackling with his suppressed rage. Gaston backed into a wall as the other man’s hand closed around his throat.

“I-” Gaston managed to gasp out before his windpipe was cut off.

“You what?” Rumple sneered, “Didn't think that I would come? That you would have to answer for this? Well, here I am, dearie! And trust me, you're going to wish you were dead by the time I'm through with you!”

With that, he threw Gaston against the stone wall. He hit with a deafening crash and no sooner had he hit the floor than Rumple was upon him again, pounding fists into face over and over until his knuckles bled.

When his anger simmered down to a low boil, Rumple snapped his fingers and Gaston vanished to the dungeon in Rumple's castle. Taking deep breaths to steady himself, he made his way over to Belle. Carefully, he scooped her into his arms, burying his face in her hair.  
“I'm so sorry Belle,” he whispered into her auburn curls as the tears streamed down his face.

With a puff of purple smoke, they were gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys, heads up right now, this is a bit cheesy. Don't judge me please. Short piece of Rumple doing some minor first aid. I am not a doctor, nor did I do any research, just made shit up.  
> I have a vague idea where this is going, but nothing concrete. Just know there will be more.  
> Enjoy?

Rumple laid Belle gently onto his bed, placing her carefully on her stomach so he could assess the injuries on her back. There were tears in the clothing where the whip had struck unforgiving into her soft flesh, rips criss crossing and covering the entire back of the shift. It would have to be cut, but even then, there were places her wounds had bled through the fabric, holding it deep in her lacerations. He closed his eyes and swallowed heavily, preparing himself for the most painful task he had ever undertaken. He wished to simply poof the wounds away, but without Belle’s consent, he could not bring himself to do it. All magic came with a price, and he could not ask her to pay it. She had already paid enough. He snapped his fingers, summoning a scissors and a bowl of warm water and a cloth, and he set to work.

Rumple began peeling the fabric from Belle’s back, inch by inch. As he pulled the cloth away, more and more of her ruined skin became visible, and he forced himself not to take it in. Not to look at the flesh beneath the torn shift. Not to look at the pain and suffering he had caused. 

When he had managed to remove as much of the shift as he could, he closed his eyes and took a deep and settling breath. Finally, he made himself look. His breath caught with a heavy sob, his heart clenching in guilt riddled misery as he took in every inch of flesh before him. There would be scars, scars that he had no right to magic away without her permission. She had gained them through pain and heartbreak and every horrible terrible feeling she never deserved to carry. It would be up to her if she wore the reminder of his betrayal forever. 

With shaking hands, Rumple wrung out the wet rag, pressing it against the wounds to soften where the cloth had embedded itself in her lacerations. Belle's unconscious form tensed, and she whimpered as he removed the cloth from her flesh. Dried blood pulled away to give life to fresh oozing wounds at the soft porcelain skin of her back.

Tears streamed down Rumple's face as he worked, determined in his goal to clean and care for injuries he was ultimately responsible for.

It was all his fault. His fault the most beautiful, wonderful woman he’d ever known was in such agony. He wept openly as he dressed her freshly cleaned wounds, wrapping Belle carefully in the clean strips of linen. Then he moved to clean and assess the various other injuries he could see. The split in Belle’s once rosy lips. The bruise on the edge of her jaw. The cuts and scrapes littering her arms and legs. He avoided anything beyond her hemline and sleeves, refusing to violate her privacy that way. He kept a blanket draped over her, determined to give her whatever modesty he could as he worked.

As daylight climbed into the windows at his bedside, Rumpelstiltskin finally threw himself down in a chair beside the bed, hoping beyond hope that she could somehow forgive him.

* * * * *

Belle's eyes snapped open, and she glanced around, completely unsure of her surroundings. She could not remember getting here, or where here was at all, and the unfamiliar setting had her heart leaping into her throat. She sat up in alarm, flinching and whimpering against the pull on her wounds as her hands gripped the blankets anxiously at her sides.

“Belle! You're awake,” a familiar voice pulled her attention to the figure sitting at her bedside.

“Rumple?” her voice was raspy, her throat felt like it was tearing from the simple act of speech.

“I'm here Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin answered as he leaned in and reached to take her hand. He thought better of it, and instead pulled it back and let it drop at his side. “I'm here, and I will never send you away again.” The last was said with a hint of a sob, and Belle frowned as she turned to face him.

“What happened?”

“You- You don't remember?”

Belle pursed her lips, trying to recall the last thing she remembered. She had been cold, and she was sure she had been injured.

“No. I don't remember what happened,” Belle answered, shaking her head lightly. She furrowed her brow as she concentrated, trying to put the pieces together.  
“You were next to me... so close...” a blush overtook her as she recalled the moment.  
“I-I kissed you. Then-” her eyes shot up to him accusingly.  
“You sent me away. You threw me out and...”  
She shook her head again and stared at the blankets in her lap.  
“I traveled home. It took... far too long. I was robbed, and hungry, and cold..... I was so relieved when I finally reached home… my father....”

Rumple watched warily as Belle's eyes filled with tears.

“He..... he....” Belle threw a hand over her mouth as she recalled the cruel treatment in her father's castle. The tears overflowed, and she took a deep breath to collect herself before she continued. “They whipped me. And beat me. And Gaston...” She swallowed harshly against the bile raising in her throat. “He was going to..... how did you find me?”

“You called for me,” Rumple responded. “You called for me, and I came.”

“How much did you see?” Belle asked him warily.

It was Rumpelstiltskin’s turn to look ill. “I.... I would rather not say.”

Belle’s expression hardened. “Rumpelstiltskin, you will tell me! You threw me out to fend for myself, the least you owe me is an account of what you’ve seen while I was at my most vulnerable!”

Rumple closed his eyes and nodded hesitantly. “Very well.” His voice shook as he spoke, and he felt a fresh wave of fury wash over him as he recounted the moment he saw Belle laid out on a table. “Gaston had you. He- he had pushed you onto a stone table. He was...... trying to....” He swallowed and closed his eyes against the bile in his throat. He took a deep breath and settled himself. “He didn't get that far.” Rumple met Belle's eyes. “And he won't threaten you again.”  
“What did you do with him?”  
“He's no longer a danger.”  
“What. Did. You. Do?”  
Rumple dropped his gaze. “He's in my dungeon. He won't hurt you again.”  
Belle nodded, scared to admit she was a little glad if the man was in Rumple’s hands. It was more than he deserved. “And what will you do with him?”

Rumple's jaw clenched at he looked up at her, fury burning in his eyes. “He will regret every day for the rest of his miserable short life what he did to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you liked it! If you didn't, please refrain from telling me.   
> There will be more soon!

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, be gentle on me. If you don't have anything nice to say, please don't say it.  
> That being said, encouragement and kind words are absolutely appreciated. Let me know if you liked it!


End file.
